New Pottstown chief aims for crime rate reduction

POTTSTOWN — With a unanimous vote and no public discussion, borough council chose Police Captain F. Richard Drumheller as Pottstown’s new chief of police Monday night.

“At first I was nervous, now I’m excited,” Drumheller told his new boss, Mayor Bonnie Heath, after the council meeting.

Drumheller told The Mercury he does not plan any immediate “sweeping changes” to department operations, but that he does have plans to improve the borough’s policing over time and he would like to set a goal of driving down the borough’s crime rate by 1 to 2 percent in a year.

Most significant of the changes he plans, he said, is a greater use of crime data to drive policing efforts.

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“I want us to use more data-driven applications to crime and law enforcement,” said Drumheller.

He said the borough currently uses a web program called CrimeMapping.com to identify “hot spots” of crime in Pottstown and he wants to focus “highly visible traffic” and police efforts to those areas.

“Right now, we’re a little too problem-oriented. You call, we come,” Drumheller said. “I want to use data to see where the problems are and get there before the fact.”

That will also involve developing better relationships with community residents, an ongoing effort of the borough’s community policing policy, he said.

That is likely to involve the creation of a Facebook page for the Pottstown Police Department, which some other departments, including Limerick, have undertaken to improve their community outreach, Drumheller said.

“I would love to see us get a Facebook account, and even get a Twitter account,” he said.

“We want people to tell us what’s going on in their neighborhood. They think they’re bothering us, but we don’t always get the full picture of what’s going on without them,” Drumheller said.

(Pottstown police and the Montgomery County Detectives Bureau are conducting a joint investigation into the shooting. Anyone who may have information on this incident is asked to call police at 610-278-3368.)

“When I looked at our data, I saw that we had some previous incidents there and I fielded three or four emails indicating there were some issues there we need to address,” he said.

“I would like us to be able to address problems like that before the fact whenever possible,” Drumheller said, “not have us just arriving after-the-fact.”

Drumheller acknowledged that Pottstown’s crime statistics are not where the department would like them to be and said that he hopes the changes he plans to implement over the course of a year will begin to cut into those.

“You really have to look at five-to-10 years of crime statistics to see a trend,” Drumheller said. “You can have one year with more crime and one with less, but that doesn’t really tell you what the trend is.”

Nevertheless, he said his goal is to drive down crime statistics in Pottstown “by 1 to 2 percent in a year.”

According to the data site Neighborhood Scout, at 253 the borough has six times the number of crimes per square mile as the national average and four times the Pennsylvania average.

Worse still, at 8.44 per 1,000 residents, Pottstown’s violent crime rate is twice the national and Pennsylvania average.

At 47.36 per 1,000, Pottstown’s property crime rate is a little better, only one-and-a-half times the national average, but still more than twice Pennsylvania’s media rate for property crimes.

However, because his retirement as chief is not final until this month, he held both posts until now.

Drumheller does not officially become the chief until he negotiates a new contract with his former boss and Borough Solicitor Charles D. Garner Jr. and passes an exam given by the Pottstown Civil Service Commission.

That could be completed as soon as the end of this month, Garner told council last week.

Drumheller as been Pottstown’s police captain since July, 2007 and prior to that, spent four years as a detective sergeant.

He holds a bachelor of science degree in crime and justice from Albright College.

Drumheller’s appoint is not exactly a surprise.

At the end of the March 11 borough council meeting, Council President Steve Toroney told a reporter that the committee charged with finding a replacement for Flanders had not advertised the position; had not sought any other candidates through any other channels, and in fact had not even interviewed any candidates.

About the Author

Evan Brandt has worked for The Mercury since November 1997. His beat includes Pottstown, the surrounding townships and the Pottstown and Pottsgrove school districts, as well as other varied general topics like politics, the environment and education. Reach the author at ebrandt@pottsmerc.com
or follow Evan on Twitter: @PottstownNews.